Tuesday, April 28, 2009

There was an internationalconference of philosophers in Hawaii on the subject of Reality. For three days Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki said nothing.

Finally the chairman turnedto him and asked, “Dr. Suzuki, would you say this table around which we are sitting is real?” Suzuki raised his head and said Yes. The chairman asked in what sense Suzuki thought the table was real.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

During my last year in high school, I found outabout the Liberal Catholic Church. It wasin a beautiful spot in the Hollywood hills. The ceremony was an anthology of the mosttheatrical bits and pieces found in the principalrituals, Occidental and Oriental. There were clouds of incense, candles galore, processions in and around the church. I was fascinated, and though I had beenraised in the Methodist Episcopal Church and hadhad thoughts of going into the ministry, Idecided to join the Liberal Catholics. Mother and Dad objected strenuously. Ultimately, when I told them of my intentionto become an acolyte active in the Mass, theysaid, “Well, make up your mind. It’sus or the church.” Thinking along the lines of “Leave your father and mother and follow Me,” I went to the priest, told him what hadhappened, and said I’d decided in favor ofthe Liberal Catholics. He said, “Don’t be a fool. Go home. There are many religions. You have only one mother and father.”

Friday, April 24, 2009

At Darmstadt when I wasn’t involved with music, I was in the woods looking for mushrooms. Oneday while I was gathering someHypholomas that were growing around a stump not far from the concert hall, a lady secretary from the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik came by and said,

If you are one of the truly elect,be careful how you attain your eminence.However much you're acclaimed, however muchthe cities praise the great things you've donein Italy and ThessaIy,whatever honoursyour admirers decree for you in Rome,your elation, your triumph won't last,nor will you feel yourself so superior -superior is the last thing you'll feel -when Theodotos brings you, in Alexandria,on a blood-stained tray,miserable Pompey's head.

And don't be too sure that in your life –restricted, regulated, prosaic -spectacular and horrible things like that don't happen.Maybe this very moment Theodotos -bodiless, invisible -enters some neighbour's tidy housecarrying an equally repulsive head.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

It is said that the best works of art are such that they cannot be understood by the majority and are accessible only to the elect, who are prepared to understand these great works. But if the majority do not understand, they must be given an explanation, the knowledge necessary for understanding. But it turns out that this knowledge does not exist, that the works cannot be explained, and therefore those who say that the majority do not understand good works of art give no explanations, but say that in order to understand one must read, look at, or listen to the same work over and over again. But this is not to explain, it is to make accustomed. And one can get accustomed to anything, even the worst. As it is possible to get people accustomed to rotten food, vodka, tobacco, opium, so it is possible to get them accustomed to bad art, which in fact is being done.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Monday, April 6, 2009

He paused and gave vent to his peculiar sound, as he evidently did whenever a new idea occurred to him.“And you know, that's the chief abomination!" he exclaimed. "Dissoluteness does not lie in anything physical - no kind of physical misconduct is debauchery; real debauchery lies precisely in freeing oneself from moral relations with a woman with whom you have physical intimacy. Such emancipation I regarded as a merit. I remember how l once worried because I'd not had an opportunity to pay a woman who gave herself to me (having probably taken a liking to me) and how I only calmed down after having sent her some money - thereby intimating that I didn't consider myself morally bound to her in any way... "Don't nod as if you agreed with me," he suddenly shouted at me. “Don't I know these things? We all, and you too unless you're a rare exception, hold those same views, just as I used to. Never mind, I beg your pardon, but the fact is that it's terrible, terrible, terrible!"“What’s terrible?" I asked."That abyss of error in which we live regarding women and our relations with them. No, I can't speak calmly about it, not because of that ‘episode,' as he called it, in my life, but because since that 'episode' occurred my eyes have been opened and I've seen everything in quite a different light. Everything reversed, everything reversed!"He lit a cigarette and began to speak, leaning his elbows on his knees.It was too dark to see his face, but, above the jolting of the train, I could hear his impressive and pleasant voice.